Journal of English and literature Vol. 2(7), pp. 157-160, September 2011 Available online http://www.academicjournals.org/ijel ISSN 2141-2626 ©2011 Academic Journals Review A study of form and content Raj Kumar Mishra (FASC) MITS Deemed University, Lakshmangarh, Sikar, Rajasthan, India. Raj Kumar Mishra C/O Vijay Shanker Pandey, 233-A Shivkuti, Teliyarganj, Allahabad (U. P.) India. E-mail: rajkumarmishra1982@gmail.com., rajmishra8327@yahoo.com. Tel: 09452691914. Accepted 18 May, 2011 This paper mainly takes four schools of criticism into account to make clearer the concept of ‘form’ and ‘content’. No doubt, it had been debated too much from Plato onwards. Formalists (New Critics included) put premium on diction. In fact they exclusively hold that ‘form’ dictates ‘content’ as such ‘content’ is at the mercy of ‘form’. They examine especially poetry and its constitutive components; for instance, metre, rhyme scheme, rhythm, figures, syntax, motifs, styles, and conventions. Genre Critics or Chicago Critics unlike New Critics consider all genres and its sub-genres. They hold ‘form’ ‘shaping or constructive principle’. To them, the relation of ‘form’ and ‘content’ is in the manner of cause and effect. The cause is ‘content’ and effect is ‘form’. They are inseparable. Marxist concept of ‘form’ by and large is based on man’s relation to his society and the history of the society. This school altogether opposes all kinds of literary formalisms. This school seeks to observe cheerful dialectical relationship of ‘form’ and ‘content’. However in the long run prefer to give stress on ‘content’. The psychoanalytic approach mainly takes interest in the revelation of ‘latent content’. They divide ‘content’ into ‘manifest content’ and ‘latent content’. This school does not take much interest in style, form or technique. It simply analyses a work of art in the light of writer’s psychology. In effect, separability of any sort cannot be justified because in absence of any of them, an artistic whole is altogether impossible Keywords: Form, content. INTRODUCTION The present paper is an attempt to trace out the chequered career of ‘form’ and ‘content’ and their rela- tionship in literary criticism. It has been hot commodity in literary criticism since Plato down to Marxist literary criticism chiefly. Simply ‘content’ means what is said and ‘form’ the way it is said. Abrams (2007: 107) writes that ‘form’ is not simply a fixed container, like a bottle, into which the ‘content’ or subject matter of a work is poured. The reference implies that ‘form’ undergoes change according to the writer’s formal choice. By ‘formal choice’, the author mean, choice of sonnet form, ballad form, etc. broadly, forms of novel, short story, drama, and poetry. For instance, if a scholar wants to pour his content into a sonnet, he has to comply with certain rules of the sonnet form. It means that ‘form’ regulate ‘content’. It is falla- cious. ‘Form’ no way should be allowed to overcome ‘content’; instead there should be architectonic relation- ship between ‘form; and ‘content’. Both should look and be inseparable. EARLY CRITICS Aristotle in his technical treatise Poetics approved of the organism of ‘form’ and ‘content’. Wellek (1963: 55) writes that the inseparability and reciprocity of ‘form’ and ‘content’ is of course as old as Aristole. In early 19 th century, Coleridge was much influenced by German philosophers, especially A.W.Schlegel, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Immanuel Kant. Kant once wrote: ‘Form’ without ‘content’ is empty; ‘content’ without ‘form’ is blind. In principle, both ‘form’ and ‘content’ lose when separated from each other; the value of correlation, as a practical device, consists largely in overcoming or counteracting their divorce. Coleridge believed in the wholeness of art and made distinction between ‘organic’ and ‘mechanic’ form. He arrives at this breakthrough while defending Shakespeare from ‘neoclassical’ critics who claim that Shakespeare’s plays are loose and utterly lack in ‘form’. Coleridge explains ‘organic form’ by giving